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"LOOT hits the jackpot." -- Rick Riordan, #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling authorOn a foggy night in Amsterdam, a man falls from a rooftop to the wet pavement below. It's Alfie McQuinn, the notorious cat burglar, and he's dying. As sirens wail in the distance, Alfie manages to get out two last words to his young son, March: "Find jewels."But March learns that his father is not talking about a stash of loot. He's talking about Jules, the twin sister March never knew he had. No sooner than the two find each other, they're picked up by the police and sent to the world's worst orphanage. It's not prison, but it feels like it.March and Jules have no intention of staying put. They know their father's business inside and out, and they're tired of being pushed around. Just one good heist, and they'll live the life of riches and freedom most kids only dream about.Watch out! There are wild kids on the loose and a crime spree coming . . .
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks; Reprint edition (May 26, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0545468035
ISBN-13: 978-0545468039
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (153 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #6,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #59 in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Family Life > Siblings #65 in Books > Children's Books > Mysteries & Detectives #462 in Books > Children's Books > Action & Adventure
Age Range: 8 - 12 years
Grade Level: 3 - 7
I love me a good caper story. Lighter, smarter, funnier, and a lot less gory than many other sorts of crime fiction, done well, they are great fun to read. And when a heist is involved, ideally in some exotic locale, all the better. I'm not an expert by any means, but my favorite of these sorts of stories involve some sort of initiating event and then a super cool and super smart individual assembling and leading a motley crew to steal something from someone who doesn't deserve to have it in the first place. Say the movies, "How to Steal a Million" or "Ocean's Eleven." Now along comes Jude Watson's Loot: How to Steal a Fortune. Her name may not be terribly familiar to you, but what she's written probably is, say a bunch of the 39 Clues books and many (many) Star War titles. But what caused me to snap up and read this title was when I learned that Jude Watson happens to also be Judy Blundell who wrote the fabulous National Book Award winner What I Saw and How I Lied.It starts out darkly with a job gone very, very wrong. We meet almost-thirteen-year-old March McQuinn, who has spent his whole life traveling around with his father, helping him with his cons and heists, mostly homeschooled in a desultory way. Now Alfie McQuinn has fallen off an Amsterdam roof and March is sitting next to him listening to his dying words, "Find jewels." The moonstones, the grieving March assumes, seven otherworldly gems that are the central objects of desire in this novel. But it turns out that his father means something else entirely. It seems March has a twin sister named Jules from whom he has been separated his whole life. She, like March, has had an unconventional upbringing and is equally savvy in the murky world of con artists and thieves.
Although (somewhat curiously) her "About the Author" biography in Loot doesn't mention it, Jude Watson is something of a legend when it comes to Star Wars novels, having written all but one installment of the Jedi Apprentice series, as well as the entire Jedi Quest and Last of the Jedi series (not to mention several assorted other young adult Star Wars stand-alone titles). Though her Star Wars fiction was geared toward younger readers, their overall quality and attention to detail made them equally popular with adults, and many fans consider her to be near the top of the short list of the best authors to ever tackle Star Wars. (Unfortunately, most of her Star Wars books are out of print and not easy to find, having been rendered non-canon by the Clone Wars cartoon and the Disney takeover, but I would HIGHLY recommend reading them if you can; they are better than most of the stories that "replaced" them.) Loot is the first non-Star Wars book I've read from Ms. Watson, and it does not disappoint.March McQuin, son and accomplice of the notorious jewel thief Alfie McQuin, finds his world turned upside down when he witnesses his father fall to his death during a heist in Amsterdam. Following up on his father's mysterious last words, he discovers he has a long-lost twin sister, Jules, shortly before the two are caught and sent to a group home in New York. There, the two are joined by two other kids, Darius and Izzy, and thrust into a race to steal seven cursed moonstones before the next blue moon and return them to the original owner, or a decade-old prophecy will come to pass and they will die.
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